


Good Company, Old Ghosts

by Skeli



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Ghost Stories, Ooooohh, Tali being a horrid drunk again, mentions of Joker/EDI, rated teen for creative license on the f word, some crew hijinks, some haunted parking lots, some shakarian fluff, the works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 07:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18868147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeli/pseuds/Skeli
Summary: A impromptu scary story contest leads to the absurd revelation that not only does Commander Shepard believe in ghosts, she says seen one.





	Good Company, Old Ghosts

Disasters came in varying forms of intensity. It was wise to realize that the existence of calamities didn't negate the headaches induced by annoyances. So Shepard, who had more of that particular wisdom than she knew what to do with, didn't feel much guilt about thinking that Tali was an absolute disaster after her third glass of triple filtered whatever.

  
The Normandy was having an unprecedented moment of peace in between missions, and the crew had gathered up on the crew deck for a nice meal together which had fallen into ruin upon the introduction of alcohol. Not everyone was drinking, granted. Shepard wasn't, and neither was Garrus. They were landing in thirty hours and he knew she would take him with her. She always took him with her, it was something of an inside joke at that point.

"I don't know what you think dating is, but Garrus is probably your soul mate since he doesn't seem to mind," Joker had once said.

  
Shepard smiled at the idea that she might have found the _one_ ; the idea that such a thing existed, and that she had it.

  
What little of the crew that hadn't dissipated back to their beds had begun a contest to see who could tell the scariest story. Tali was in the middle of spinning a tale about a haunted ventilation control panel, but had begun to mix up adjectives with adverbs the more she sipped from her straw. Shepard was trying intently to follow the jumbled story. It had started off mildly interesting, with a the mysterious death of three crew men who all died at the exact same time without raising alarm to the rest of the ship.  
Shepard wanted to know how it ended but the tale's conclusion, along the deaths of Kigor, Olan, and Joe, was nebulous to say the least.

  
"And so, the four men -"

  
"I thought there were three?" Vega interrupted.

  
"I said three," Tali said while holding up two fingers.

  
Joker barely managed to avoid spattering his midnight coffee across the table. Rather than interject at every nonsensical plot twist like Vega, Joker was simply enjoying the train wreck for what it was.

  
"Pure entertainment," he chuckled under his breath.

  
Vega ceased poking holes in Tali's narrative long enough for her to, mercifully, finish.

  
"And so the three men found themselves grappling for air as the vents were opened, and the wind was sucked out to space. Joe was the last to fall, and he had to watch his friend and his cousin by marriage die slow, horrible deaths because an intern rewired the mainframe wrong, and turned the vent system evil. The last thing he ever heard was the machine-like laughter of the...the machine telling him his step-father was right, and he wasn't worth shit."

  
"How can a control panel laugh?" Vega asked.

  
"Stop ruining the ambiance," Tali shouted.

  
"Come on, Sparks," Vega said."There is no ambiance. You took a break in the middle to write out the plot points on a napkin, which I can see by the way."

  
Tali threw her arms over the napkin protectively, nearly knocking her drink over in the process.

  
"Don't look! Spoilers!"

  
Kaidan broke out into a laughing fit, doubling over in his chair. Garrus covered his small laugh with a cough, and took the opportunity to reach across the table and slide Tali's drink away from her while she was busy glaring at Vega. He handed the glass to Shepard, who leaned back in her chair to dump the rest of its contents into a house plant. The empty glass was returned to Tali before she was any wiser.

"I take it you think you can do better, huh, muscles?" Joker said.

  
"As a matter of fact," Vega braced his forearms on the table and leaned over them."There's a little story passed down the Vega line that makes even my fellow marines shiver."

  
"Lay it on me, big boy," Joker said.

  
Vega made a face. Shepard smirked at the two of them over the rim of her coffee mug. She felt Garrus run his fingers over the hand she had rested on the arm of her chair, tracing each knuckle individually as if they were the most interesting thing in the room. Shepard flipped her hand palm up and Garrus laced his fingers in hers as well as he could with only three digits to her five.

  
It was clumsy, but oh-so endearing. Garrus in a nutshell, really.

  
"It all started long ago, in the early nineteen-nineties," Vega began."When my great-great-I-forget-how-many-greats uncle married into the Vega family. His wife was my maternal great-great-you-know-the-drill aunt, Makayla."

  
The story proceeded unoriginally, in Shepard's opinion at least, although it did have impact in the way Vega described the sounds and sights of the haunting after Auntie Kayla's death at the hands of a used car salesman. Tali, despite holding grudge for being interrupted, was stiff and utterly enraptured with the tale. Joker smirked, unfazed.

  
"The parking lot where she was run over was torn up a decade later," Vega said."Rumor has it that the spot became a whole food grocery store and then a bowling alley. You know, once the sport became popular again. Nobody knows where the site is today. All the Vega's who knew swore to take that secret to their graves. Uncle Tim never married again. He said that Auntie Kayla always felt too close."

  
Tali shuddered, which made Vega smile with his chest puffed out. Joker raised his hand in a student-like manner.

  
"Why did Tim keep going back to the parking lot when he knew it was fuckingly haunted?" he asked.

  
"Because he missed his wife, bosh'tet!" Tali shouted.

  
"The only time I'd ever enter a whole foods would be to see my dead wife," Kaidan said.

  
"Is it a good time to tell you all I don't know what bowling is?" Garrus said.

  
Vega and Joker exchanged verbal strikes while Tali stared critically at her empty glass, as if trying to put together a mystery with only half the clues.

  
"That was a good one, Vega," Shepard said.

  
"Thanks, Lola," Vega grinned.

  
Joker crossed his arms and shifted toward Shepard, brow raised.

  
"I'm surprised, Commander," he said."I thought you and I were the only sane people at this table. No offense, Garrus."

  
"Oh, you can't offend me, Joker." Garrus replied."I know you."

  
Joker's affronted "Hey!" was drowned out by Tali slumping half her body onto the table with a solid thunk. The evening was a minor catastrophe, but Shepard felt at home in the storm. She was content to watch them trading insults and half-formed jokes until they couldn't keep their eyes open anymore.

  
"You don't believe in ghosts, Joker?" Kaiden asked.

  
"Of course not," Joker scoffed.

  
"I'd bet you'd be a believer if the ghost was a hot woman you could date," Tali snickered.

  
Joker's mouth opened and closed without articulating anything. He had the good graces to blush just a bit. Kaidan was laughing again.

  
"EDI is one of a kind!"Joker said."And obviously very real, unlike poltergeists from the nineties. Back me up here, Shepard."

  
"I can't," Shepard said.

  
The entire table went still and, as if on cue, leaned forward in their seats. All eyes were wide with interest, silently urging her to elaborate.

  
"I've seen a ghost before."

  
Garrus craned his neck to get a better look at her face, trying to ascertain if she was messing with them. He knew that she could be mischievous occasionally, but only about trivial matters.

  
Ghosts were not trivial matters to Jane Shepard.

  
"No way," Joker scoffed.

 

"You must tell us more, Shepard," Tali said.

  
"It's not a fun story. Not even scary, actually."

  
"Well, now I'm even more intrigued," Kaidan said, resting his chin in his hand.

  
Shepard took a swig from her mug. They were all her friends, the closest friends she'd had all her life. Shepard had never told a soul about what she'd seen and heard, but if there was ever a moment, or a crowd, it was then.

  
"Let's see," Shepard said."I was a young marine trying to prove my worth in hand-to-hand combat, and getting tossed into the dirt by people stronger and more experienced than me."

  
"So you are human," Kaidan teased.

  
"Used to be," Shepard smiled." Couldn't coordinate myself, that was the problem. I was easy to knock off balance. This older marine, Lee, got tired of watching me fail over and over again and helped me train. He was just the right mix of supportive and relentless. By the time I worked myself up the ranks, no one could knock me down and Lee was family as far as I was concerned. We worked well together, got put on a lot of missions together. I knew someone was watching out for me when Lee was on the field. When we really got into it, it was almost like feeling invincible."

  
Shepard could see Lee in her mind's eye as she spoke. Medium height and build. Dark hair and eyes. Frown lines around his mouth, never smiled with his teeth. He used to let his niece paint his nails, but nobody said anything about the glitter when he forgot to take it off. No one made fun of Lee, but not because they were afraid of consequences.

  
"And then Akuze," Shepard said through a sigh.

  
"Jesus," Kaidan whispered.

  
"After that day, I felt like I'd been knocked down for the count. It was the first time I didn't have the drive to get back up. I never liked alcohol that much, but I started to drink every night just to get to sleep. The headaches were awful, and even though I was never drunk on the job, people knew something was up. In the back of my mind, I knew it was a problem, but I just wanted to rest. I was so tired."

  
Shepard drained her mug and set it down. She thumbed the handle to focus on something other than the horrified stares of her crew. Garrus gave her hand a squeeze. It anchored her from getting swept out in the sea of old memories. Memory lane was a path well traveled, and yet she often got lost in reminiscing those days.

  
"It must have been four months after. I poured myself a glass of something bottom shelf and brown, and stood there for a second just looking at the glass. I felt helpless and small, and I remember wondering if this was how it was going to be forever. And then I looked up, and standing across the table from me was Lee. Plain as day. He wasn't see-through or anything, he even had color in his cheeks. It really was like he was _right there_."

  
Her eyes connected with the deep blue of Garrus' irises. Unthinkingly, she wanted him in particular to understand how dead serious she was, how much it affected her. Maybe it was farfetched and maybe he didn't quite believe it, but she hoped he could see what it meant to her.

  
Shepard scanned the table hesitantly out of the corner of her eye. Tali had shoved her glass far away, fingers gripping the edge of the table. Kaidan's brows were drawn taut with concern. Joker's nails were biting into his bicep, no trace of a wisecrack on his lips.

  
"I thought I had finally lost it," she laughed, empty."But then he said, 'It's time to put that down now.' That's all he said, but I swear to God it was his voice, loud and clear. I put the glass down, and I turned to my bed. I heard the sound of something scrapping across wood as I pulled the covers over me. I fell asleep not too long after, no dreams, no nightmares. Just rest.

  
"When I woke up, there was no blistering headache, the sunlight didn't make my eyes throb, and the glass of shit liquor I poured the night before was sitting on the far side of the table, a good two feet from where I set it down."

  
Everyone was quiet for a while. Nobody was sure of what to say. Shepard awkwardly squirmed in her chair. She was still getting used to sharing things like that. Perhaps if it were just Garrus, her chest wouldn't feel so tight.

  
"It's alright if you don't believe me," Shepard said."Just don't make fun of-"

  
"We'd never do that," Joker said.

  
Kaidan nodded in firm agreement, but seemed at loss for what to say.

  
"Made fun of my Auntie Kayla," Vega muttered.

  
"She haunted a parking lot," Joker said flatly.

  
"I believe you, Shepard," Tali said.

  
"Thanks, Tali," Shepard said.

  
She noticed that Tali had begun to sway a bit, and knew it was time to call it a night. She stood, and Garrus stood with her, still holding her hand. Shepard hardly minded, but it wasn't the usual protocol. He didn't make a habit of being openly affectionate, they both had faces to keep up. Privately was a different story, of course.

  
"I'm turning in," she said."Thanks for listening."

  
Joker bid her a goodnight through a yawn, and Kaidan patted her shoulder on his way to the elevator. Tali was asleep on the table.

  
"You coming up?" Shepard asked Garrus.

  
"Of course," he said."I don't want to be around the vent controls in the battery right now."

  
"Don't tell me that story got to you," Shepard said."And did I forget to mention there's a bowling alley in my room?"

  
Garrus chuckled as they entered the elevator. It was just them, so Shepard leaned her head against his shoulder. It had never been so easy to rest her weight on someone before. She closed her eyes and hummed appreciatively as the heat from his shoulder warmed up her cheek. The elevator lurched upward.

She was glad she told them about Lee. He was important to her, always would be, but she could scarcely talk about him with being reminded of his late night visit, and not everyone would be as understanding as crew had proven themselves to be. Even Joker put aside his disbelief to be considerate of her, and that probably have said more about how her respected her than any of the casual flattery he tossed her way. She couldn't hold back the grateful smile that spread across her lips. Best crew in the whole damn galaxy. 

Shepard nuzzled the fabric of Garrus' shirt and peered up at him.

  
"You're awfully quiet," Shepard said."No quips for this one?"

  
"Hits a little too close to home to joke about, Shepard," he said.

  
"What do you mean?"

  
The elevator opened up and they made the short walk into her cabin. Garrus flopped on the couch, arms across the back. Tempting as it was to crawl under one of his arms, she sat on the table across from him so that she could see his face full on. She leaned in, curiosity brimming.

  
"Have you seen a ghost?" she asked, her voice was a hair above a whisper.

  
"No," Garrus said."And if you'd asked me about it a day ago, I'd have said there was no such thing. When people are gone, they're gone for good, and we can only hope they got into the good place."

  
"So, what did you mean in the elevator?"

  
Garrus bent over to rest his elbows on his knees, bring his face closer to hers. His voice dropped low, making its gravely edge more pronounced. Even if someone was in the room with them, they would have to strain their ears to hear him.

  
"I don't know if what you saw was real, and I'm not saying it wasn't. All I know is it was what you needed to see. I can't joke about that."

  
He reached out and laid a hand over hers.

  
"And, I don't want to make light of the idea that I might be able to come and see you if it turns out I'm not as good a shot as I think I am."

  
She could hear in his voice how much that idea stung him. How he tried not to think of it as if it became more and more possible each time it crossed his mind. A fallacy of logic, to be sure, but she could empathize. To enjoy the moment, sometimes she had to forget about what was to come. But on the other hand, one of the things that got her through the week was fantasizing of the things they could do and the places they could go when it was all said and done. No matter where her heads was, Garrus was the only constant, and he was determined to remain that way even if death caught up to him before it paid her another visit.

  
He was her soul mate. She'd decided it, then and there. Shepard was of the opinion that there was more than one person who could make you happy, if you kept your eyes and mind open, but the other alternatives didn't matter. She'd made her choice.

  
Garrus clumsily laced their fingers together and looked at her like she was the rest of his life. Her chest ached in the best sense of the word at the knowledge she'd been chosen back.

  
"Are you going to haunt me, Garrus Vakarian?" Shepard said, smile soft.

  
"Oh, yes," he smiled back.

  
Garrus leaned forward to press their foreheads together. Shepard met him halfway. He had his eyes closed, but she kept hers open for a moment, watching the rolling blue light of her aquarium wash over his face in waves.

  
She would gladly look at him forever.

  
"Just like this, for as long as I can."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are my anchor in a sea of memories.


End file.
